Well, the Phillies followed up their three-game weekend sweep of the Braves by getting blown out at home by one of the few teams in baseball with a worse record than they have (though not anymore--with the win, the Padres actually have a better record than the Phillies again), losing tonight's series opener by a score of 8-2. Tyler Cloyd proved imminently hittable in his first start back from injury (or was he just terrible? Who remembers at this point), giving up seven earned in just four innings of work, putting the Phils a little too far behind the eight ball for a late-game comeback.

The game was not without its highlights, however. Well, one of them at least, two if you count Cody Asche's solo homer after the game had long been decided. (Is he good? Maybe he's actually good?) The more memorable one happened with two outs in the eighth, when our not-quite-fleet-of-foot young catcher call-up Cameron Rupp legged out an infield single to third, getting his first big league hit in the majors. In his jubilation, Rupp then stumbled and fell on his face...

...much to the amusement of his father in the audience.

All good for Killa Cam, though--the CBP crowd (or what was left of it by the eighth inning) gave him a standing ovation for his efforts, with Dad leading the charge. Hard to get a non-sarcastic--well, mostly non-sarcastic--ovation from the home crowd when you're losing 8-1 to the friggin' Padres. And Rupp's bleeder did start a two-out rally of sorts, leading to Rupp also scoring the first run of his career on a bases-loaded walk to Cesar Hernandez.

Plus, Matt Gelb reports that the umps had some uncharacteristically nice things to say about Rupp's approach behind the plate:

"I must say this: The home-plate umpire [Mark Wegner] came over in the ninth inning during a pitching change and said that was some of the best visibility he's seen all year and the best framing of pitches he's seen," Sandberg said. "That was pretty cool. I noticed with [Rupp's] posture, he gets a little bit rounded. I could see where an umpire can see the ball well coming in. He gave him a good compliment right there. That's impressive."